#best revenge is living well

[cookinguptales]

me, to dead-ass Karl Lagerfeld: man, I hope you can see Harvey Guillén rn. I want you to see how good a fat man looks in the style you pioneered and seethe.

[shiroikabocha]

imagine if part of the US government was working on decommissioning all our spy satellites and turning them into deep-space telescopes, and then another part of the government was pissed off that we weren’t using the spy satellites to coordinate drone strikes anymore, so they engineered a complicated plan to shift public opinion back towards drone strikes, but all they managed to do was explode the space shuttle and kill everyone on it, and THEN twenty years later there’s a knock on the door of the Oval Office and it’s the severed actuator arm of the destroyed space shuttle and it’s pointing a gun at the president and it says YOU EXPLODED MY FAVORITE TECHNICIAN YOU BITCH

and that’s Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

oh whoops kinda accidentally made a storyboard of charlie kicking lute's ass huh?? oh dear~ however could THAT have happened~~

anyway, vaggie's black and white murder angel wings turning into shades of grey after she starts looking for redemption for herself and everyone else in hell, and charlie's hellfire fury demon side only ever coming out in answer to threats against the people she loves, both are things i needed to see thank u

extra bonus points for vaggie finding her new wings by thinking about charlie and charlie holding her while going into demon mode again just to glare at the woman who took vaggie's old wings. i lov

(emotionally speaking charlie has already kicked lute's ass :)

[starheirxero]

No but genuinely this is such a fun and fascinating turn to me!!

I will never truly get over the fact that Solar harbors guilt for "killing" his Sun and now the fact he's being hunted by the one other peson who should know that he didn't is gut-wrenching to me.

It almost mimics Lunar and Eclipse to me in some way. Just,, the vibe of "you should be the person who can help and understand me best, but instead you hurt me. Instead of being a supportive figure, I have to run away from you to feel a semblance of safety and normalcy. Instead of being able to cry into your arms, I have to raise my hands to shield myself from you." Yk????

Idk it just feels very sad to me and I can't fully explain why. It's just the ever-lingering "what could have been", I think.

[childrenofthesun77]

Assuming that the whole 'mahiru is the vessel needed to bring back the count and the 9th servamp will be the servamp of vainglory' theory will be correct, it's interesting how both mahiru and touma can be accused of this sin even if the way it applies to them is opposed.

What touma wants is to be acknowledged and to that end he was willing to become the villain who destroyed the world before mahiru and tsurugi managed to change his mind:

Mahiru's way of being vainglorious seems a lot more positive at first because he wants to be a hero who saves others, but it's self-destructive and encourages laziness in others:

But thankfully we see mahiru starting to let go of the need to make other people proud of him and to prioritize making himself proud in his conversation with tsurugi:

and later when mahiru has a meltdown because he fears his uncle might be dead and suggests sacrificing his life to save the world kuro rightfully yells at mahiru for acting hypocritical and not listening to his own advice:

(I want to mention here that I really love how horrified kuro looks as he realizes that mahiru's reckless hero behaviour comes from a very self-destructing place:

because not a lot of manga I know really acknowledge that maybe the way a lot of their protagonists try to be heroic is actually pretty unhealthy and shouldn't be encouraged? Like Sigurd pointed out at the C3 meeting, it's kind of shameful that the children have to save the day)

Which is why I love that mahiru decided to trust kuro to handle tsubaki without him going with him:

He decides to stay back with everyone else, showing that he has learned that he doesn't need to be the one to do everything and can stay back with the others to buy kuro time.

Interestingly we see touma doing something similar. Opposed to his old need to have the whole world acknowledge him he now wishes for everyone to believe he's dead and he's helping to protect the city by creating a huge barrier without making it known that's he the one doing this:

He's helping the protagonists seemingly with no intention of earning acknowledgement for it.

I think in a way it could be cool of servamp to subvert the shouned trope that for the finale battle the only one able to defeat the big bad is the protagonist while everyone else just watches on from the sidelines, not allowed to do anything because this is the protagonist's moment of glory.

What if lily's plan when he put kuro in mahiru's path was that if kuro tried to stop tsubaki at the gate surely his eve would need to be there with him, right? Because of course he needs his eve to fight and then there's also the distance limit. So why not make the vessel you need at that gate for the ritual to work kuro's eve? Then the vessel would be at the place where you need them without you even needing to do something because naturally they would be thinking they are doing the right thing by going with kuro to fight tsubaki together. And surely someone as vainglorious as mahiru would never pass up the opportunity to be the hero who stops tsubaki. It's foolproof!

Unless of course before the ritual the vessel learned to let go of their vainglorious nature, accepted that it's okay to take a step into the background and trust in others. And additionally also found a way to break through the whole forced proximity thing that the servamp and eves had going on.

I don't know, I feel like it would be a neat bow on mahiru's character arc and a unique way to thawrt the antagonists' plans if the creation of the servamp of vainglory failed because the 'it has to be me' guy they wanted to use as the vessel decided against glory and stayed back to let his partner handle things with tsubaki alone because he trusts him. Kuro on the other hand wants to make up for his past regrets and resolve the conflict through communication this time. Learning to trust in himself again by managing to talk tsubaki out of going through with the ritual on his own would be a logical conclusion to kuro's arc.

[cor-corbinian]

What if Michael Distortion just continued to live Michael Shelleys life? Just shows up at the magnus institute to continue his job and neither Gertrude nor Elias/Jonah can get rid of him because technically Michael has a contract as an archival assistant.

Edit: Link to fic :)

[mcnuggyy]

sorry its late and i dont wanna ramble too much about the glory but like.... im just really thinking about how people who have been bullied will always always always remember and be more affected by what happened than by the people who did the bullying (or abuse, or assault, etc.)... like that will be something that we will always carry with us for the rest of our lives... and we have no way of knowing if those people even remember doing what they did... like i can remember exact sentences and the exact expressions of disgust made towards me... like that really does just stay with you forever... but for them, they might not even remember, and if they did, would they regret it? anyways i very much do love revenge stories where the revenge IS the answer, and some people just really do deserve to have karma served to them for the abuse they have enacted on others amen <3 

[frazzledsoul]

Honestly, Jess and Lindsey Lister, removed from their hometown and their ill fated teenage romances, is a god tier ship. Probably not meant for the long haul, but put the teenage angst in the past, let them be successes in their own right, and have them go at it.

There's always going to be this undercurrent of hurt and inferiority clouded around those memories, because Dean and Rory rejected them for each other and then drifted apart two minutes later. I feel that both of them are inverted mirror images: Lindsey tried so hard to be the perfect wife that Dean wanted, but was rejected for not being good enough, while Jess made it clear he had zero interest in being the perfect Stars Hollow boyfriend and was resented by everyone for it, eventually including Rory. There's something about that final speech to Rory in season 4 where he's begging her to take him back because he can be the perfect boyfriend now as long as he doesn't have to stay there, in Stars Hollow, reminded of all his worst mistakes that reminds me of Lindsey being submissive to Dean's horrible treatment of her in early season five. Lindsey is saying she won't ask any more questions, she'll make that perfect dinner that makes Dean happy, she'll try again and again, as long as he stops screaming at her and doesn't pick another fight and....maybe both Jess and Lindsey deserved more, to be appreciated for their own selves, not in the idealized version that Rory and Dean wanted them to be.

Jess and Lindsey both ended up as casualties in Rory and Dean's quest to bury themselves in nostalgia. Lindsey was obviously the bigger victim, but both of them were judged for being found wanting, and despite the karmic justice in the pitiful end of that destructive little affair, there had to be somewhat of an undercurrent of revenge in Jess and Lindsay hooking up years later, especially if they had both moved beyond that small town that treated them badly. I'd like to think Lindsay had a fabulous later on because we know Jess did and yet...there's something equally tawdry about a fling that you know your younger self would relish in because of how much it would piss off that ex who hurt you, even if it no longer means the same thing anymore. Beyond that, though, maybe it's more about celebrating the fact that you got to move on.

Also, they can fight about whose musical taste is shittier before they get it on.

[thedragonagelesbian]

dammit i thought i had calculated the point totals right to get divine vivienne :((

[cinematic-literature]

Old Boyfriends (1979) by Joan Tewkesbury

Book title

Midnight Express (1977) by Billy Hayes and William Hoffer

A Book of Common Prayer (1977) by Joan Didion

Going Crazy: An Inquiry into Madness in Our Time (1976) by Otto Friedrich

Living Well is the Best Revenge (1971) by Calvin Tomkins

Heavily Tattooed Men and Women (1976) by Spider Webb

Maya Plisetskaya (1976)

Secret Passages and Hiding Places (1974) by Jeremy Errand

Dispatches (1977) by Michael Herr

Collected Shorter Poems 1927-1957 (1962) by W. H. Auden

Slapstick (1976) by Kurt Vonnegut

Colette: A Taste for Life (1977) by Yvonne Mitchell

The Laszlo Letters (1977) by Don Novello

Cheap Chic (1975) by Carol Troy and Caterine Milinaire

[kvtie-pie]

I had a glass of wine as well as some bread dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar and I’m feeling a little better

[thegoldenavenger]

Here's a quick. Thing. They're All God's (except LBH) AU. This is like, the ending. no i dont explain anything. i just wanted lqg to get melted down and rebuilt. you know, as gods do. this does have an open/unsatisfactory endind just fyi haha

When he loses the first time, Liu Qingge refuses to acknowledge it. It doesn't matter, after all, as long as he tries again he can change something. He returns the second, third, fourth, fifth times.

He has lost count when he realizes that the something he has changed is in him. With the same heaving blood soaked breaths he coughs up at Luo Binghe's figure, something has been changed in him.

Of course. He cannot be the God of Breakthroughs if he cannot break through.

He keeps losing.

Each battle he marches into is another dig at his once spotless reputation. He feels his divinity and grace slough away from him like dried mud. Still he faces Luo Binghe every day.

It forges him into something else.

When Shen Yuan reawakens, not dead but Ascended, Liu Qingge stops his fruitless battles. 

Shen Jiu is with him. At some point the God had shed the title of Qingqiu as trees lose their autumn leaves. Still the God of Bitter Fall and Uneven Ground, of Unfair Advantages, but now also of Cunning Thought and Persistence. He hasn't changed, Liu Qingge realizes. He's just revealed more of who he is.

Shen Yuan is, as always, Shen Jiu's compliment: God of Bountiful Harvest and Smooth Travels, and of Cutting Words and Sloth.

Shen Yuan has, thoroughly, molded himself into the perfect God for his precious demonic pet. Luo Binghe will never want for a single thing ever again with the God of Easy Living walking by his side.

Liu Qingge wants to avoid them both. Everyone else is already aware, but from these two he wishes to hide his failures for just a little longer. However, the core of him is settled in such a way that he cannot find it in himself to pull away.

They want to see him.

It's no surprise that when Yue Qingyuan invites him to a banquet, Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan are there as well. As ever, Yue Qingyuan's bias shines through.

"What did you do?" Shen Jiu snarls from across the banquet hall.

"Who— oh Qingge!" Shen Yuan turns and catches sight of him as well.

Tension rises in Liu Qingge's body but—they've already seen. And if, somehow, they are too dense to understand, any one of their God siblings will explain it. Poorly. So Liu Qingge stays.

Shen Jiu is, of course disgusted. Shen Yuan intrigued.

"I thought once gods Ascend they do not change." He comments curiously.

"They don't." Shen Jiu hisses. "They can adapt perhaps. Split. Acquire or shed new epithets or old ones as we have. But they do not change. If they stop being what they are, then that God simply ceases to be."

"It's as it is." Liu Qingge shrugs. "I'm still a God—"

"Of cycles." Shen Jiu accuses.

"Reliability!" Shen Yuan insists. "Qingge is always dependable."

"It is no great thing if you can only depend on him to lose." Shen Jiu's dark gaze is calculating and Liu Qingge understands that, somehow, Shen Jiu knows the whole story already. That he simply needed to see Liu Qingge to fit the pieces together.

"He doesn't lose!" Shen Yuan defends, loyally. "Qingge has always been there when we needed him!"

Silence descends on the banquet hall like an awkward blanket.

"What, did—have I missed something?" Shen Yuan asks, glancing sharply around.

Yue Qingyuan, belatedly, ushers the rest of his guests out. Liu Qingge supposes he must be grateful that Luo Binghe isn't here to enjoy rubbing Liu Qingge's nose in it. Shen Jiu will, assuredly, have no problems doing it instead.

"It's exactly as Shen Jiu says." Liu Qingge starts. "Fighting Luo Binghe has irrevocably changed me." He says.

What he doesn't say: I cannot win against him now even if he deigned to throw the fight.

Perhaps, to Shen Yuan, the change isn't so dramatic. Shen Yuan had never wanted Liu Qingge to win that battle anyway, and Liu Qingge has ever been Shen Yuan's most reliable God-Brother.

Once upon a time, Liu Qingge was a War God. There were and still are many gods of war: strategy and prowess, blood and conquering, weapons and trade.

Liu Qingge was the breakthrough. The final push. The turning of tides. The culmination. He had never failed to turn a lost cause into victory, there had never been a battle lost to him if he meant to win it.

But then Shen Qingqiu became two, and then Luo Binghe built a shrine and Shen Yuan wasn't prepared for his tribulations and then—

Well.

Liu Qingge is a War God. Of Cycles, Shen Jiu says. Of Reliability, Shen Yuan insists. He is the God of forlorn hope, of having only one spear and one sword, of hunting phoenixes in mirrors. The same battle retread for the same reasons.

[lethal-liability]

*white knuckling the office phone* I'm gonna have a good day I'm gonna have a good day I'm gonna have a good day

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

"O-Oh, yes, I'll be fine, thank you," Susannah smiled sincerely at him, her cheeks warming at the warmth of his tone, the compassion in his eyes: When was the last time someone cared that she made it home safe? It felt like eternity since then, but all that time, all the loneliness...it just seemed to fade away in his presence.

She thought that would be the end of that. The buck stops here: They would bid each other good night, and that aside from her completing his order and giving it to him, they would never see each other again. She figured tonight was a one-off, a fluke. He merely wanted to check in after the night before, just to put his mind at ease, and then they would part ways forever, and she would look back on the short time she spent with him fondly.

But in that moment, she decided this would not be the end.

"U-Unless...y-you'd like to come in..."

It was a silly, simple offer, one she was sure he wouldn't really take her up on...he probably had better places to be than sitting in her little kitchen, drinking tea or coffee or something like that and continuing to talk, the way they did the night before...

...but if he did accept (and a small part of her, very secretly, hoped that he would), she wouldn't object in the slightest.

[socialbunny]

guys look at this ask i got yesterday

anyways have u guys ever heard this shit? give it a listen song of the summer fr

[llycaons]

I downloaded the first episode of the double and I hope I'll be able to keep up with this one because it's the first cdrama since the untamed to really strike me emotionally in the first episode. they should probably have a suicide warning tho. like having 'fear' as a content warning is really not that helpful